


timeless is love

by abeyance



Category: The 100, The 100 (TV), The 100 Series - Kass Morgan
Genre: Bellamy Blake Loves Clarke Griffin, Bellamy Has Feelings, F/M, Love Confessions, Reminiscing, Sad Clarke, Season 5 spec, clarke tells bellamy about the radio calls, locked up together, post 5x08, season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 23:25:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15205766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abeyance/pseuds/abeyance
Summary: Once Bellamy is arrested for poisoning his sister, Clarke and Bellamy find themselves locked up together, impending their inevitable deathmatch. With unknown hours on the clock, they find themselves confessing things they had been wanting to tell one another for quite some time.OR: Clarke tells Bellamy that she had called him every day after he explained how much he knows he loves her.





	timeless is love

**Author's Note:**

> do i want this to happen? yes. will it happen? no, but that doesn't matter. enjoy.

Mostly everything was working out the way he had planned. 

The plan was unfortunate, in some ways more than the other, but Clarke wasn’t being killed as of right now. That means it was mostly successful.

Octavia, on the other hand, was. He wasn’t allowed to see her, and Clarke wouldn’t be either. Anyone she once sought as a threat was not allowed to be near her sick room. And because, from outside eyes, Bellamy was present during the time of her entering the comatose state, they labeled him as a suspectful menace. He couldn’t really be mad about that, so he didn’t let himself get angry.

But he  _ was  _ allowing himself to feel more guilty. Sure, he was on his way to the place they were keeping Clarke, which would hold as his cell just as much. He didn’t know what it was yet, but they both were to be punished. At least Clarke wasn’t dead yet, though. At least her getting pulled out of his tent wasn’t their final goodbye. He was going to see her again, held hostage in some damn makeshift cellar. The difference was...this time he hadn’t seen her in four hours, not six years, and the only reason he was doing so was because his sister was on her deathbed. All in his fault.

He let himself off the track. He pretty much  _ killed his sister _ \- his  _ responsibility - _ because she set him off.

How can one person have that effect? How could he have thought his sister couldn’t be  _ taken out _ for her plan to kill the only habitable spit of land, but for her order of Clarke's execution? _ One person _ set him off. Not the risk of humankind being doomed. The loss of one damned person threw him off his big brother tactics, so much that he promptly did it himself. He killed his sister, all for one person’s death sentence. 

 

_ Who you love. _

 

Damn it, damn it, damn it. A cold sweat broke out across his body. He desperately wanted to shake his arms between the guard, in an attempt to shake the feeling off, but they would see it as a resistance. It never did anything, anyway. Everytime he would think it, years and years in space just wanting to go back in time and  _ tell her _ \- he had to tell himself he couldn’t. She was a ghost. 

And now, she was mere hours away from being another. This time, a true one.  Not a ghost that filled the emptiness up there, but a  _ truly dead Clarke ghost _ that wouldn’t ever have a hidden thank-god-for-night-blood miracle again. But he stopped that from happening - for now. By killing his sister.

Octavia threw it at him. When they first left, and when he looked down on the red planet and could only think  _ Clarke is dead down there _ , the realization grew and grew until it was right in his face. But then, along with his guilt, he mourned -  _ they, _ mourned - and it resulted as the one single thing that kept him for doing anything he didn’t feel like doing. But, over time, Bellamy had imagined that his love for her had faded - there was nothing to love but a memory. And then he met Madi and that cold sweat broke out again - and slowly, what feeling he buried deep down started surfacing at just those words. She could have turned into Blodreina herself...but his love would creep back up anyway, because somehow, Clarke was smart enough and strong enough to survive what no one believed she did.

He'd been dealing with it. Bellamy swore himself every time the thought came to him - if, when he mourned her death, he not only accepted the loss of her, but let go of the love for her, too - it would leave bellamy alone with his thoughts. There was no one to help him, since he never dared to admit what he found that he felt for her to anyone. There truly wasn’t anyone to help him, even now, because no one else felt as he did for her on the ground - and dealt with the guilt of their death for six years and one week. So he was trying to figure this feeling out. Slowly, Bellamy was. Baby steps.  But then Octavia flat out said it, and he couldn't find words that denied it. Because she was right. 

The love was there, it never had left, and that’s what kept him going. It had been masked by his vengeance, in his correlated goal to avenge her with whatever action he could take that would suffice. Through that, he still always loved her. Through his vindication.

The guards stopped. Bellamy looked at both of them before stepping forward, toward the door. He settled in his feet as he waited for the guards to open them. His legs shook with adrenaline coming from his heart, his head - _the heart and the head_ \- as Bellamy took in the moment before facing Clarke, the girl - _woman,_ now \- that he knew he loved fully.

With a screech of metal, the door slid open to a boiler room. At the sound, Clarke stood up from a bench and turned towards it. She was handcuffed to a pipe a few feet in front of her. Although Bellamy was intending to walk in without difficulty, one of the guards  gave him a small shove to make sure he knew where he was going. 

“Alright,” he murmured. He sensed a guard toeing at his heels on his obnoxiously slow pace to the bench, which earned him another shove. He kept his eyes’ connect with Clarke’s own nevertheless. The eyes he stared into were tense with confusion as they followed him to the bench.

“Bellamy? Wha -” Clarke’s soft question was bluntly interrupted with the ring of Bellamy’s chains as the guard, who caught up to his front, yanked them down toward another pipe. It looked like his place would be on the floor.

“Don’t get too friendly. You both will be seen in the ring the second Blodreina recovers,” The guard disputed. As if his blood had ever gotten the chance to warm back up, it froze over once more.  The guard was multiple arms-lengths away at that point, and Bellamy gave his cuffs two sharp tugs against the pipes as if it would do him any good. 

“Hey - Hey!” his growl chased the guard, who ignored him. “You can’t just leave us in here! We didn’t do anything!” he desperately,  _ painfully,  _ tried to keep with the act. 

“Bellamy.” Clarke voice quieted him before the guards’ tasers did. He turned to her, meeting the stitch in her brow. He didn’t know what to think with her posture - what was going through her head. Her body had the same, tired look only he could ever see past the leader-mask she hid it behind. But there was no mask. There was no leader here...just an exhausted person. “We did.”

And that's when he realized that she had given up. She had no answers. Only the guilt that gave them nothing. 

“Clarke,” Bellamy started. Clarke didn’t let him finish.

“We killed someone, Bellamy. For nothing.”

“You don’t know what Cooper would have done.”

“All of this is still going to happen, though. Shadow Valley is going to be destroyed, just with one less person on Octavia’s side. She’s not going to stop. She’s always going to find some  _ way -” _

“Octavia’s dying, Clarke. I poisoned her.” he let his hands fall between his knees in front of him. Clarke looked at him.

“What? Bellamy -” she attempted to sit next to him, but her chains betrayed her. If they both stretched their legs their heels would be able to touch. “Why?”

“There wasn’t anything else I could do. I told you...I can’t kill my sister. But this way, I can tell myself I only poisoned her. If she dies, its on the fault of the medics.”

There was some silence. “And how is that working out of you?”

Some more. For him to gather his thoughts. “Not great.”

“You did the right thing. At least it will give our friends some time…”

“Before they get to watch us fight to the death?”

It seemed like Clarke forgot about that part. 

“I was going to say to find and destroy the eggs. But I guess that, too.” the heat of her gaze that was melting was ice that had been his blood almost  _ forced  _ Bellamy to look up at her. Just to look at her for a second, like he was able to when they had their first moment together in six years. But Clarke wasn’t going to let him have it. 

“You are going to have to win.” she established. It took Bellamy a second to process it - what she was saying.

“I...I can’t kill you, Clarke.”

“I’m not stupid, I know that. We are going to have to fight first, and then...and then I'll do something, I guess. I’ll over swing, or pretend to trip or something -”

“ _ Clarke. _ I mean I can’t  _ let you die.  _ There's…” he had no idea where he was going with this, other than anything as selfish as _ I can’t deal with that again. _ “There’s too many people who need you. _ ” _

Her expression melted into something apologetic. Like he was the one to be sorry for.

“Bellamy, no one really needs me anymore. Madi is about to grow up, and she admires you. I’ve grown away from all of you, anyway. Six years is a long time…I understand that. You all are each other's family. I’m not going to separate you from that.”

He didn’t really have anything to argue with. Because, frankly, what she said was true. The only thing he could come up with was I  _ need you. _

“Octavia won't fall for it,” Bellamy laid out, desperately. “She’s seen how good Madi can fight. She will catch the tale, and kill me, too. And then Harper will be stuck with watching over Madi for the rest of her teenage days.”

Clarke’s countenance questioned him. Bellamy shrugged slightly. 

“I didn’t just go in and knock my sister out when we ran out of ideas. I made you a promise, so there was planning to avoid breaking it.” There it was; Clarke’s appreciation smile. He had been seeing that lately, almost what he could say a lot of that since they returned to the ground. It was almost like  _ thank you _ was too foreign, now. Like there was never really a true opportunity to say it anymore. 

“There's your heart.”

He couldn't help but chuckle because it was true. They both were waiting for one of their deaths, chained to pipes that were centuries old, and Clarke was able to make him laugh.

“Well, I don't know which I'm using by saying I am going to find our way out of here, but I don't really care. We are no matter what.” His statement killed the amusement. When his focus returned to Clarke, lines had creased her forehead, and she was looking back at him.

“That's definitely not your head. Bellamy, if we do get out and Octavia wakes up, thats only another reason she would be hostile towards our side. She would punish us second-hand. Kill our friends.” it struck him how true it was. That his sister, who once was a part of them, was now the enemy that was the deadly concern. The accuracy of Clarke’s prediction stalled any words in his head, and he sank into silence. He needed to think of something.

Though, perhaps maybe hours in, he came up with… well, nothing. Bellamy’s brain  _ hurt _ from the amount of methods he ran through his head, and maybe he was overthinking it, but there was nothing. No way to get out of his friends’ punishments that would arise. Octavia had too much power, too many people. They would always be surrounded.

“Clarke,” His tongue was thick as he said it. She, realizing after minutes of silence, Bellamy had nothing to say, rested her head against the bench she had been leaning on. She rose from whatever sleep she was in at her name. Bellamy ran over the words one more time before they met his tongue. “You’re going to kill me when Octavia wakes up.”

She resisted to understand and shook her head. “Bell -”

“I don’t know how long the poison will be lasting, so I’m going to just say it now.” His voice came from deep in his throat; any higher was flooded with emotion. He kept his eyes casted down at his bent knees in front of him. Bellamy felt that there was too much spit in his mouth for him to be talking. That didn’t stop him. “I can’t watch you die, Clarke. If I have to go through that again, I won’t be able to make it.” He didn’t dare to notice her expression. “I’ve worked through everything to get us out, and nothing will beat her. Not without death.” it killed him to say this; “And in a way, you're right, Clarke. In general, it would make more sense for you to die in that pit.” He looked at her and waited until she looked at him. He needed to say this to her eyes. Her expression showed his mind; it told him that she was just as scared to what he was going to say as he was. Bellamy watched her swallow hard, then continued. “But I’m too selfish for that.”

This was all his heart. He was not thinking; but then again, he didn’t exactly have to. He's known this for six years.

“It’s been six years, Clarke. It  _ is  _ a long time. But even longer when there's nothing to look forward to, only things to look back on. Octavia may have turned into… this - this person,” his heart fluttered. “But I know she’s became more fearless. Fearless enough to be the only one to help me understand -” this was going too fast. He was rambling, he needed some explanation. Because what he was on the way of doing would just sound like nothing but confessing confused emotions.there was nothing that didn't make sense to him, though. He’d been dealing with these thoughts for years, but was only too scared, too broken to fully admit to himself what he had.

He took a breath. Two, to gather his thoughts and blink. Slow.

“Six years ago, when we were on that riverside after the hydrazine chase, I was afraid we wouldn’t have a lot of time left. And I think I was finally getting there, to notice what I...what was in my mind. I wanted to get it out there, at least part of it, before we may have never seen eachother again. The scare that you were killed by Ice Nation made me think. The constant state of wanting to find you after Mount Weather made me know how much would be missing if you were ever gone. But then we were interrupted on that river side, and suddenly, it was back to saving the world. It wasn’t even a week later that I left you down here, and I blamed myself for the six following years that I should've just told you, even though you assured me we would be okay. Because for the time being we were, but then...then we werent. And to think I was stupid enough to rely on the chance of us both getting up to the Ark for me to come to terms was stupid. Because along with having to deal with the mourning of your death, and the guilt of leaving you down here, it was also the death of a feeling I never understood I had until it was too far away for me to grab onto it again.

“So I loosened my hold. I distracted myself. And then suddenly, we get a call that someone was being chased on the ground, and I knew I needed to get down there to save her. Because that's what I didn’t let myself do with you. I thought it would maybe fill an inch of the six foot hole that we dug those years before. And then I get down there and it's  _ you _ , and you've been  _ alive _ \- I almost died just with the comprehension. And then suddenly, I see you, I look into your eye again, I feel that you are warm, and living, and everything I desperately tried to bury for six years all flooded back in, and I almost died all over again. Because now I had six years to understand what that feeling was, and that it was no longer meaningful; just a memory. And then it suddenly wasn’t. Because over two days I learned that you are still you, just amplified. And that means…” 

“What does it mean?” clarke whispered. Their eyes met again. 

“It means that even at that damn riverside to now, six years later, I still love you, only more than I did before. And I’m not going to risk the avoidance to say it. I love you.” he needed water. Between what that brought out of him and the dryness of his tongue - and the silence, so much silence - Bellamy was going to faint.

He looked up at Clarke. She sat there, eyes wide and glossy, looking only into his. Her face and neck were flushed like she had been the one talking all this time.

“And it kills me now, Clarke,” he added. “Because I can see that despite you being the same person, your feelings have changed. I spent days remembering how we interacted, and I got  _ so mad _ at myself for not coming to terms sooner. I come down here and see you have found a different kind of love for a different kind of person. I lost you - to the point where we barely talk to one another of what we used to so easily. I feel like you don’t even think you are allowed to.”

“You’re right, Bellamy,” Clarke spoke softly. Her throat sounded like it was drier than before. “But not in every way.” 

He was almost scared that she was going to tell him he didn’t actually love her - that it was honestly just his mind trying to grapple with the constant thought of losing her and getting her back - but she didn't. Dammit, that wasn’t even close. 

“We are the head and heart. You know that. But when you left, I suddenly didn’t have the other half. The first thing I did when I was conscious enough from radiation sickness to do it was use a lab radio to contact you - to see if everyone made it. No one answered, so I did it a few times everyday, just incase Raven or Monty was working on the communications. To try to turn away from the idea that you didn’t even make it there at all.”

His throat was burning as it narrowed. They weren't working on communications those first few weeks. They were exploring the Ring, Monty was starting his algae farm, and Bellamy was sitting by that damn window, moping over an empty metal cup that he liked to imagine had moonshine in it.  It was weeks before he officially had drawn himself away from it, even just a little bit, cutting his time of looking at the red earth from days to hours. They were looking at the way they were going to be living for five years when she was trying to find out if any of her friends was living at all. He imagined what it would be like if that was the case, and that Clarke would one day have to deal with all of this edge-of-war shit on her own.

“After a few days, I didn’t really expect an answer, but there was always that hope in there that someone would - although I always hoped it would be you on top of anyone else, since I was mostly directing them at you more than the others.  It wasn’t exactly asking if you were okay anymore, just updating you on what I was doing. How the ground was doing in general. I had so many questions I asked you over the years, so many that if I could recall them all to ask you now, I am pretty sure that will take us until the next apocalypse.”

He chuckled at that, at the irony. But it was all he could laugh at.

“I didn’t know if you were receiving them, or if you were even alive to do so, but I still called you, every day. Because I knew if I wasn’t going to do anything during the five years other than figuring out how I was going to survive, I'd start talking to myself way too much, and slowly I would go insane. If you were dead or not, I wasn’t going to let that happen. 

“And then five years settled in. I started to face the fact that you still weren't down with me, that you haven't answered my calls. But I kept doing them. Because even until day two thousand, one hundred and ninety-nine, living with denial was better than admitting you were truly gone.” There was soft tap; tears falling from and hitting skin. At the sound, his own started creating a river mark down his cheek. 

“But right on the brink of day two thousand, two hundred, your face matched the voice I’ve been killing myself to hear for years. And at the moment, when you told them how important I was to you, and how you looked at me when we finally were face to face, I believed it. I believed you heard my calls, and I was so thankful. And, not a day later, you asked me how I survived, and that just told me that my idea of you being able to hear me was not what I hoped it would be; it wasn’t even true. And then it all felt like nothing. The whole time I was calling you I completely understood it was a very high expectation to believe that you were hearing me this whole time, but the confirmation that you didn’t… that I was really just talking to a ghost, it took much more of a toll than I ever imagined. Out of this whole time, I never really thought to myself that you all were thinking I was dead, one hundred percent. Of course, there was a chance I died, but with my nightblood, I was thinking it was the same with you thinking I might be dead to me thinking you might be, too. But then I saw you with her -” Clarke stopped before Echo’s name reached her lips. “But then I saw you had mourned me. That you might as well accepted my death. And meanwhile, I was down here thinking it was just going to be five years and we would be the head and heart again, that it would all be the same a before.”

“It sounds like you weren’t using your head for that. And I would have never been able to accept your death.” it was all Bellamy was able to say. He finally looked at her. He watched as she gave him a sad, tearful smile.

“I needed my other half for mine to work.” She thought for a moment - one of them was going to lose the other in maybe even a few hours. Might as well, Clarke thought. “I’m going to decide right now, actually, that these are probably close to our last moments together. I'm not holding anything  back when I say this, now.” Bellamy’s heart paused - he was becoming… well, simply terrified of what was next. But she waited until he met her gaze to go on. “Drawing you, talking to the ghost of you, it made me jump from the ladder I was climbing down into love for you. And it wasn’t until I saw how much I lost you that I landed.” Clarke sniffed. The shaking of her head made her short tendrils stick to her face where her tears stung down. “You are the half that makes me whole, Bellamy. How can I not love you for it?”

Tears were streaming down both of their faces - from the emotional toll of it all. He almost thought of Echo before he said it, but -

“If it weren’t for these chains, I would be kissing you right now.”

Clarke smiled. “We’ve been waiting over six years to do that. A few hours before we figure out how to get out of here is nothing.”

She was right. Time was nothing against their love.


End file.
